The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Four centuries later arose the celebrated Ulugh Beigh, grandson of
Tamerlane, who reigned at Samarcand in the middle of the fifteenth
century. Bailey says of him: “Ulugh Beigh was not only a warlike and
powerful monarch, but also an eminent promoter of the sciences and
of learned men. During his father’s lifetime he had attracted to his
capital all the most celebrated astronomers from different parts of
the world; he erected there an immense college and observatory, in
which above a hundred persons were constantly occupied in the pursuits
of science, and caused instruments to be constructed of a better form
and greater dimensions than any that had hitherto been used for making
astronomical observations.”
His fate was one which so enlightened a promoter of learning little
deserved; he was assassinated by the order of his own son, who desired
to succeed him on his throne; and in order to make his position the
more secure, also put his only brother to death. A catalogue of the
stars bears the name of this monarch; he is supposed to have made many
or most of the observations on which it is founded. Posterity will
be likely to suppose that a sovereign used the eyes of others more
than his own in making the observations. However this may be, his
catalogue seems to have been the first in which the positions of the
stars given by Ptolemy were carefully revised. He found that there
were twenty-seven of Ptolemy’s stars too far south to be visible at
Samarcand, and that eight others, although diligently looked after,
could not be discovered. It is curious that, like Al-Sufi, he does not
seem to have added any new stars to Ptolemy’s list.
Next in the order of time comes the work of Bayer, whose method of
naming the stars has already been described. The main feature of this
work consists of maps of all the constellations. Previous to his time,
celestial globes, made especially for the use of the navigator, took
the place of maps of the stars. The first edition of this book was
published in 1603, and is distinguished by the fact that a list of
stars in each constellation is printed on the backs of the maps. Bayer
did not confine himself to the northern hemisphere, but extended his
list over the whole celestial sphere, from the north to the south pole.
The catalogue of the celebrated Tycho Brahe, prepared toward the end of
the sixteenth century, though of great historic value, is of no special
interest to the general reader at the present time. A supplement to
it, continuing its list of stars to the south pole, was published by
Halley, who made the necessary observations during a journey to St.
Helena in 1677.
The catalogue of Hevelius, published in 1690, offers no feature of
special interest, except the addition of several new constellations
which he placed between those already known. Having the aid of the
telescope, he was able to include in his catalogue stars which had been
invisible to his predecessors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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